Untold
by marzoog
Summary: Remember that words have certain boundaries. It is hard to fit every feeling in them. Remember that often the most important part of a story is the part we never are told. Phillipa Gordon & Jonas Blake.


**Disclaimer:** You think I'm LMM and I have money:: in manner of weeping first Oscar acceptance speech: You like me, you really really like me. Ah, shucks, too bad I'm not. I could really use that money.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

**-Maya Angelou**

Untold

By marzoog

_Looking at the wedding between these two people, ugly theologian and beautiful social butterfly, the threads of their story are buried. This dénouement has deep roots behind it: such strong, lasting love does not branch out of thin air. _

_Gentle Reader, no story comes without a little heartache or a little of the inexplicable. Remember that words have certain boundaries. It is hard to fit every feeling in them. Remember that most often the most important part of a story is the part we never are told. _

**O&O&O&**

It is not until he is standing outside, amid the sunset and wind, that he knows. Understands. Perhaps he does not accept, but at least he can find the beginnings of acceptance. Jonas Blake is a sensible man, has always been well liked and appreciated for it despite a homely shell.

But it is sensibility rather than sense that is ruling him now. More particularly, the sensations felt when a brown-haired young woman sat across the table from him. The minute gasp he had exhaled went unnoticed to all but himself; the symbolism of that outtake of breath is impossible for him to forget.

He wishes she weren't so beautiful. It hurts him, this previously unknown ache to touch what can't be his. But Jonas Blake is a sensible man – he does not cry or weep. He clenches his fists, and feels that though God may be testing him as He did Job, he will be able to bear it.

Jonas Blake is a sensible man.

**O&O&O&**

She may have not noticed him as a serious personality until one morning when he preached, but it takes him until that evening to fully see past her superficial loveliness.

She is sitting on a rock by the shore, watching the wind create its creases in the water. The lulling sound it makes shifts around her ears. She is so absorbed by it that she doesn't see him joining her on her rock.

"Ms. Gordon?" He is gallant enough to not let her feel embarrassed by her shocking familiarity this morning. "What are you doing out here all by your lonesome?"

She sits up straight as a poker at the sound of his voice. He longs (unexpectedly) to soothe her shoulders by a sweep of gentle his hand.

"I did not mean to frighten you. I am sorry." His calm words belie the emotion behind them: he is shaking and his palms feel wet to the touch.

"Oh, it wasn't that you startled me." She does not know how to proceed with that sentence and not give too much away. The repercussions of that could be unimaginable.

"What was it then?" _I won't let her put me at a distance, not if I can help it_, he promises to his own cerebral cortex.

"Would…" What to say, what to say? "Would let me not answer?"

_If I say no, would you really give me a true answer, Philipa? _

Not comfortable enough with her to voice his true thoughts, Jonas gives a gentle "Yes."

Her relief is evident; perhaps she would have told him after all?

"Thank you." _You are so good for me. If only you knew that,_ her mind pleads vigorously.

He wants to push her, wants to forcibly pry behind her porcelain doll exterior. But he lets silence speak for him – silence that says more than he ever could with inadequate words.

Her heart must have listened: tentatively, her head drops onto his shoulder.

**O&O&O&**

There are moments when her yearning for him is acute after their sandswept summer has ended, nights she spends cocooned in a windowsill at Patty's Place or Mount Holly. To keep herself from insomnia she has learned to pick out small beauties about him: the colour of his eyes, as green as deep-sea water, as algae. The depths of those irises are comforting: a safe haven, a centering anchor.

After such a night during her Christmas vacation, when Alec and then Alonzo come for a drive, she tells them she couldn't marry either of them. She knows now that there is only one man she could ever marry – an unsightly theologian named Jonas.

O&O&O&

When she answers the door, his smile is as crooked and brittle as a twig. He realizes for the first time that she must be nervous as well. They are both on previously untred ground. He has never asked a girl to marry him; she has never been in love. If this unfamiliar ground proves to be quicksand, they can always hold hands while they sink.

He does not hold out his hand, though he wishes to. Instead, he lets her awkwardly initiate conversation.

"Shall….shall we go out to the orchard then?" They know each other so well that it has become almost impossible to fear not speaking as delicately as a tight rope walker – that rose of love might be stronger than friendship's blossom, but the thorns one might encounter can cut deeply.

"Yes, let's."

This time, as they walk out into the old, dear orchard, he slyly grasps at her hand and enfolds it in his. Phil almost sighs with contentment – physical contact makes the insecurity shrink.

They sit on an old bench. Jonas plucks one of the flowers from his coat pocket – a wildflower he found in the park that afternoon – and tucks it into her hair. As he does it, his fingers can't help skimming down her check. Phil's eyes become dreamy and then cautiously close.

The whiff of pollen, however, forces Phil to sneeze and ruins the romance of the moment. Jonas holds out his handkerchief.

"Thank you" she murmurs, handing it back to him.

He doesn't answer: he is too ensnared by the look of her, the dimple in her chin, her shining brown hair (almost russet in the sunset light). He is in awe, amazement but also fear. How could one so fair care for one so homely? After reading all those old fairytales of Beauty and the Beast he is unsure whether Beauty really loved Beast under her skin, in every fibre and cell of her being.

"Are you alright, Jonas?" Her eyes are wide and unsteady.

"Philipa," he mumbles. A dramatic pause, full of expectance, and then – _achoo_! Another sneeze breaks the enchantment of moonlit orchard.

Unexpected to him, sobs start to accompany the sneeze. He tries thrusting his handkerchief at her but that that accomplishes nothing. She continues shaking, tears creeping out of the edges of her eyes to spill onto her cheeks.

"Phil…" His fingers thread through her hair with calm, unfaltering strokes. "Phil." He tether of patience has worn out: his arms wind round hers and he closes the gap between them. "Whatever is the matter, dearest Philipa?"

She goes abruptly still. Silently, she distances herself from the Eden of his embrace.

"Am I really…" She chokes on the word, "dear to you?"

"Of course. " His grip on her forearms becomes almost vice-like. "Always."

"I didn't know….didn't dare dream…." Her broken words articulate heartache he could not have been sure she had felt. The air smells free and green now – the smell of hope.

Phil can't help sneezing again as the pollen floats past her nose. In conjunction with the effects of her weeping, she looks to be a very pitiable creature. This, the beautiful and always gay Philipa Gordon!

It is her appearance more than anything that conveys the depth of her feelings to him. He doesn't resist the impulse to hold her fast and close.

"Philipa, I love you."- _sneeze_ - "Surely you must know that. You always try so hard to flitting and jolly but underneath you are the strongest and"- _sneeze_ - "most tender women I've ever met." – _sneeze_ - "I know I am poor and probably don't deserve you, but….would you?….I mean…Phil, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Sometime between the words "my' and "wife" Philipa practically screams the word "Yes!" triumphantly and wraps her arms around his neck. Her brown head rests on Jonas's shoulder. For this one, shining, glorious moment, there are two perfectly happy people sitting in the night drenched orchard of Patty's Place.

**O&O&O&**

_And so they are married. Patterson Street soon becomes home for the once Bluenosiest of Bluenoses. The years weave them together tightly, inextricably. Surprisingly, to others. Because, dearest Reader, they do not see the almost unperceivable cord tying their two hearts together. He is what she wishes to be and she is everything bright and loving to him. Their love is not sort of tale you can read in a newspaper – not something to be advertised. _

_Perhaps, after all, it is these untold moments that are the most true and accurate and solid foundations to base any claim of knowledge of a person upon. Once you have learned that, the pieces may start clicking together to form a picture of this wedding instead of bits of a puzzle. Once you have learned that, my most Gentle Reader, you are prepared for almost any story - even your own. _

**O&O&O&**

AN: Ok, so that was just…weird. Really. Don't ask me where it came from. **_SPECIFIC_** constructive criticism is always very appreciated (IE: "please fix grammar error on line so and so" or "this piece of dialogue is OOC, changing to this…" and meaning that you would present me some way to fix it).

This one is for Ruby for getting accepted to Law School. Congrats!

Have a beatific day:) And an early Joyeuse Jour de Bastille for all fellow Francophiles!


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